FINAL CORE - Chapter 7

*He points at me*

"I remember the first time I went into a dungeon, wide-eyed and excited. I held my sword in my hands, together with my dreams and hopes for the man I was going to become.

- Like my sword, they were way too big for my hands back then.”

*He holds his hands out in front of himself, squeezing his fingers.*

“The dungeon sent me packing and I’ll never forget the sight of a horde of slimes chasing after me as I barreled my way back towards the dungeon-gate. At the time, it was the most frightened I’d ever been. But after thirty years of the work, let me tell you, there were plenty more opportunities than that.

I think I talked to a dungeon-core once, you know? Yes, really.”

*He gestures excitedly, waving for me to sit down*

(Note: I had not moved from my seat anyway)

“I was just camping on floor twenty of the western crawler-cave and this… person just comes out of the darkness. I thought it was just some other adventurer, who got into my session in the dungeon somehow. We talked about a lot of things, mostly the dungeon. They asked me what I thought about the earlier floors and traps and such, you know?

It was a nice chat. It’s always good to talk to someone from the trade.”

*He stares up towards the ceiling of the room*

“Well, they left and then later on, when I came back the next time, the floors had changed and shifted. The traps were different, the monsters had been moved around or even replaced and sure enough, I couldn’t help but notice how much some of the new details lined up with that conversation I had.”

*The man shakes his head.*

“Pretty sure I got a few groups of people killed because of that.”

~ Excerpt of a documented interview with SSS-Rank adventurer Salin Divarious, on the topic of his biggest mistakes as a young adventurer.

__________________________________________________________

Isaiah sits at the top of very-big-tree, having identified a critical problem.

With the tower growing in size, the second floor almost being complete, the very-big tree is slowly but surely losing its importance as the most important feature of the landscape.

The creature looks around itself, coming up with an idea. “Green,” it says.

The green uthra flies over. “What’s up?”

Isaiah points at the very-big-tree. “Put the tree on top of the tower.”

“Uh…”

“Very big tree goes on top of the very big tower!”

The green uthra shrugs. “Sure. I’ll uh, I’ll get some dirt and stuff ready on the new platform.” It looks over its shoulder. “Should we uh… hmm…” It points at the person, the intruder, stumbling around outside of the tower. It looks like a human, but it has sharp ears and white hair and dark, bluish-gray skin; a dark-elf. “Should we do something about that?”

Isaiah watches the stranger, who still hasn’t really caused a problem yet. She’s stumbling around by herself, just kind of laughing and taking a drink from her bottle every now and then, before spending another few minutes talking to the trees.

Isaiah shakes its head. “Build.”

“You got it,” replies the uthra, flying away.

Isaiah meanwhile, continues to watch the intruder, who is clearly in a state of sorts.

She takes another swig of her bottle and stumbles around, leaning against a tree. Turning towards it, blowing a strand of white hair out of her face, the woman nudges the tree with her elbow. “- You know what I’m saying, right?” she asks.

The tree does not respond.

The dark-elf stumbles back, pointing at the tree and howling, as if it had replied with the funniest thing imaginable.

She gracelessly stumbles and flops down onto her back, staring up towards the sky for a moment and then starts wildly laughing again. Isaiah lifts its gaze towards the blue sky, trying to see what’s so funny. But there’s nothing there to see, except for some perfectly normal clouds. They aren’t even shaped like anything funny or weird.

It lowers its gaze back down to the stranger.

Drool leaks out of her mouth as she snores, having fallen asleep right then and there. The bottle, clenched in her hands, rolls away from her, spilling the rest of its contents out over the ground.

“Hey, boss,” says the red-uthra. “Should I kill it?” it asks. “We can always use more meat for the stockpile.” It nudges Isaiah. “This is your chance. It doesn’t look like an adventurer, but humans and elves and stuff are worth a lot of experience-points,” it explains. “Way more than a boar. Killing it would really help give us a fast boost.”

Isaiah thinks for a moment, looking at the figure that is laying there, asleep. The dark-elf immediately sits upright with a sudden jolt, laughing very loudly at nothing at all, before immediately falling back down to the grass, her face landing in the puddle of her collecting spit.

“No.” Isaiah points at the tower. “Only if it intrudes,” explains the creature. “We’re not evil.”

“I mean, it’s kind of relative, no?” asks the uthra. “This is hallowed ground and it's making a mess all over it. So…”

Isaiah shrugs. “Not until it intrudes.”

The uthra sighs. “Okay, you’re the boss,” it says. “Just don’t get me killed like those other schmucks.”

“I’ll try,” says Isaiah, getting up from its perch. There’s no need to be on the lookout. Whatever that dark-elf is doing here, it doesn’t seem to be a threat, yet. It’s clearly inebriated. Isaiah can smell the liquor all the way over here, remembering the familiar, burning scent.

__________________________________________________________

[New Area Added]

Floor {2}

The second floor of the tower dungeon. It is currently empty.

Capacity: {6} Monster-Points

1 TRAP

Monster-Point prices per monster

• F-Rank: 1
• D-Rank: 4
• C-Rank: 8
• B-Rank: 16
• A-Rank: 32
• S-Rank: 64
• SSS-Rank: 128

Isaiah nods, pleased. The second floor of the tower is complete. They’re making progress. “And floor one?” it asks.

“Set up just like you wanted,” replies the crystal uthra. It grabs Isaiah’s hand and pulls it along to the staircase, down to floor one.

The cylindrical room has been set up so that the entrance is on a small stone platform. When one comes inside, you have to walk down a small staircase to enter a wading pool of water.

Statues line the room, akin to the ones out by the hot-spring, and fill the space with a constant flow of fresh water from the river outside.

In the center of the room is a fountain, adorned with a cluster of ornately hewn, stone figures. Three gargoyles, adapted to fit in with the holy spectrum. One holds a stone sword and shield, one holds a stone staff and one holds a stone bow.

[Gargoyle]

Class: Monster

Element: Stone

Type: Adaptable

Category: Golem*

Level: 1

Gargoyles are very adaptable, intricately crafted golems that are able to fill multiple roles, depending on how they were constructed. They remain inactive until a fight is triggered, at which point they will animate.

*Golems are highly resistant to all non-impact damage and magic (+75% DEF)

[Gargoyle Swordsman][Gargoyle Priestess][Gargoyle Archer]

“Good work,” says Isaiah, looking around the room for the fourth monster.

The wading pool spans the entire breadth of the floor and beneath the ankle-high, shallow waters are ornately carved and intricate patterns in the tiling. A bright light, coming from above somehow, casts a refractive shimmering pattern across its surface.

- There, on the far side of the room, is a disturbance as something moves just beneath the surface of the water. The hidden element to the first room.

[{Holy-water} Slime]

Class: Monster

Element: Nature

Type: Adaptable

Category: non-specific

Level: 1

Slimes are a classic monster. Made up entirely out of acidic goo, they only exist to eat and to grow larger. Confusingly, they are known amongst adventurers for their bubbly and bright personalities, despite their horrific mannerisms. Slimes can adapt to any environment with enough of anything akin to a fluid, ranging from swamplands, to oceans, to magma-pits.

Holy-Water: Negates all DARK type damage and status-effects.

“Excuse me!” calls a voice, suddenly, from across the room.

Isaiah grabs the uthra, the two of them quickly hiding behind the gargoyles. The dark-elf has come inside the tower. She’s stumbling around by the door, swaying on her legs as if she were at sea. “Is there a washroom anywhere around h-”

She steps down the small staircase, missing the step and she tumbles down, landing face first into the water.

- Nothing happens.

Isaiah and the uthra just kind of watch as she lays there, bubbles leaving the area around her head as she remains face-down in the water. The slime seems to notice her presence and begins making its way towards her.

“Should we, uh… should we do something?” asks the uthra.

Isaiah does recall setting a line with anyone entering the tower and that line has certainly been crossed.

It stares at the thing, laying there, drowning itself.

She can hardly be called a threat though. This is actually kind of sad.

“Take it outside,” says Isaiah, shaking its head. “Before it pees in the water.”

“You sure?”

Isaiah heads to the staircase, going up to inspect the second floor. “Yes.”

“Okay. But this isn’t normal dungeon protocol.”

“Towers aren’t a normal dungeon,” replies Isaiah, going up the staircase.

__________________________________________________________

The very-big-tree is now on top of the second floor of the tower.

“So, it was kind of a pain in the ass,” says the green uthra, pointing around the area. The top of the tower is covered in soil and replanted grass. The tree sits firmly on top of a small ‘hill’. “But we’ve set it up so that we can just lift this platform up every time we add a new floor,” it explains. “That way we don’t have to replant the whole thing each time.”

“Good work,” says Isaiah. It is now very high up. This is good. This is pleasing.

It lifts its gaze. The sky is still very far away. But it’s closer now than it was before.

“Please continue.”

“Will do,” replies the green uthra.

Something lets out a panicked shout from down below. Isaiah sighs, watching as the dark-elf, having woken up and vanished into the forest, now runs away in terror as the will o’ the wisp chases her through the forest, casting magical bolts everywhere in an attempt to kill her.

“…Are you sure that this is fine?” asks the uthra.

The two of them watch as the woman screams, flailing, as she drunkenly runs several laps around the tower, until eventually ducking into the hot-springs area to hide.

Isaiah shrugs. “Build.”

“You got it,” it says, flying away to return to its work.

Isaiah sits there for a moment, staring around at the landscape, now that things are quiet again.

The entity closes its eyes, gazing through the eyes of the statue, inside of the hot-springs.

The dark-elf is there, face down and floating in the water of the bath, in which she seems to have fallen into while running. She doesn’t seem to be swimming or awake. She’s just kind of floating there.

Isaiah opens its eyes and sighs. “Red!” it calls.

Sure, as a dungeon-core it’s obligated to defend itself. But you can’t really defend yourself against something that isn’t a threat. The dark-elf is a nuisance at best and the part of Isaiah that it had held true, back when it was a human, is still a driving force in its life and current decision-making. There’s no need for senseless bloodshed.

It orders the red uthra to drag the dark-elf out of the water before she drowns and to hang her over a branch somewhere in the forest to dry out, both proverbially and literally.